


We're swallowing light, 'til we're fixed from the inside

by SkyScribbles



Series: A thousand fingerprints on the surfaces of who I am [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Essek Week, Gen, Highly important use of divine magic, Hugs, In which Essek soul-searches and does not enjoy it, Introspection, Little bits of Shadowgast, Post C2E99, Redemption, Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:53:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23428771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyScribbles/pseuds/SkyScribbles
Summary: Choose to do something,Caleb said.Leave it better than it was before.And Essek imagines closing his hands over those scarred wrists and pleading,how?He hovers a moment longer. Then he drifts into the kitchen.This is ridiculous. This is pathetic. Caleb told him to do something, and he’s chosenbaking.(In which, if Jester Lavorre asks for cupcakes, you provide cupcakes. Even in the midst of a morality crisis.)
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Essek Thelyss, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Series: A thousand fingerprints on the surfaces of who I am [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874992
Comments: 69
Kudos: 514





	We're swallowing light, 'til we're fixed from the inside

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 4 of Essek Week: 'Wine/Cupcake.'

Here are ways that Essek has imagined spending this, the evening after a war’s end:

In his laboratory, with the Assembly's research laid out across the floor, the Beacon’s secrets laid bare on the parchment. Working long into the night, no conflict to distract him and nothing to stop him now that he finally has what he wants. (Some of what he wants. Crumbs of what he wants.)

Or in the Mighty Nein’s home, sharing wine and cheese and congratulating his friends on a peace well made. Indulging in a little selfish gladness that his treason brought these people to Rosohna, and to him. (This, of course, is no longer possible.)

Or curling up somewhere quiet and dark in his house. Pressing his face into his hands and fighting back tears of relief that it is _over._

Here is what Essek is doing instead, while two armadas sail for home and two nations count their dead: sitting alone in his dining room. Thinking about pastries.

It would be easy, so easy, to find a bakery and teleport to that bizarrely-named ship with a box of cupcakes under his arm. And he is so tempted to do it. To throw away two high-power spells, to risk himself on the gambling-game of teleportation, and stomach the stares from anyone who sees the Shadowhand floating through the streets with a box of pastries. All to make Jester smile.

It’s a ridiculous thought. He knows he won’t do it. But he wants to.

It’s cold, this tower. It’s always been cold. Essek pulls his arms free of his cloak and wraps them around his upper body.

Jester hugged him, once. He gave them a house and she hugged him, and he was a _stranger,_ but he knows Jester and knows that she meant it. If he had brought the pastries today – if he’d just carved out an hour to buy them, just _one_ – he thinks Jester would have hugged him again. And he would have hugged her back, this time.

Outside his window, a bell tolls. The criers have been out all day, filling the streets with half-truths: _the war with the Empire is over. The Luxon’s Beacon is returned to us by those who stole it away -_

Essek throws himself into his usual hover, and drifts out into the streets. People are calling to each other from their windows and balconies, cheering, playing instruments. There are drums and strings and voices, and it’s beautiful. But Essek once followed a screaming flute and a badly-played harp through the streets towards the warmest evening of his life, and nothing will ever match that, really.

He doesn’t go to the bakery, and he doesn’t buy cakes. Instead he visits a grocer and a potter, and comes away with flour and eggs and sugar, and a mixing bowl.

* * *

The first batch he makes is – well. He can _eat_ them. It’s just that he isn’t enthused by the idea of eating very many of them.

He hovers on his back step, breaking off pieces of the not-exactly-cakes and throwing them out into the garden. The birds flock around them, iridescent feathers flashing as they peck at the scraps, and Essek watches them and thinks about what Beauregard said to him.

‘What are their names?’ she asked, and her face was steeled and righteous. _Loose ends,_ Essek had said, and Beau heard _throats to cut._

He hurls another almost-cake onto the dirt, sending the birds scattering. It’s over. It’s over, and he has not been discovered, and he should be able to _breathe_ now. But Beau took him for an assassin and he cannot shake the sickness in his gut.

_And you’re surprised? What fate do you expect Adeen Tasithar to meet? What thriving life did you plan for Yeza Brenatto, once you had what you wanted from him?_

Nothing. He planned nothing. He took Nott’s husband, because he wanted to, because he could. His plan had always stopped at _find out what he knows._ If the Assembly did not trade Yeza back - and why would they care any more than Essek did for the life of one halfling? – Nott’s husband would have died in the cell where Essek threw him.

(Nott’s husband. Nott, who trusted Essek with the making of a spell that would alter her own flesh. Who once put one small arm around him as Caleb pulled them into a hug.)

 _I cannot say I regret what I have done,_ Essek told the Nein, and he didn’t lie. He does not regret what he’s done to Adeen; it has kept him alive. But he regrets what it made Beauregard think of him. He does not regret what he did to the halfling chemist who _knew more than Essek did_. But he regrets what he did to Nott’s husband, and to Nott, and to Nott’s son.

Essek’s head hurts.

He cannot un-abduct Yeza. He can’t do more for the man than he already did, helping his wife back into her body. Not can he exonerate Adeen without throwing himself under the knife. All he can do is survive and finally do his work and be glad he’s still breathing. Because it’s _over,_ and isn’t that enough?

But Caleb kissed his forehead, and the feeling still lingers. Like how the sunlight over the lagoon burned itself into Essek’s eyes long after he turned away.

 _Choose to do something,_ Caleb said. _Leave it better than it was before._ And Essek imagines closing his hands over those scarred wrists and pleading, _how?_

He hovers a moment longer. Then he drifts into the kitchen.

This is ridiculous. This is pathetic. Caleb told him to do something, and he’s chosen _baking_.

But he rolls up his sleeves anyway, and gets to work on another batch.

* * *

The third batch is edible. The fourth is pleasant. With the fifth, he does some experiments with honey and dried fruit, and it’s starting to become. Well. Fun.

As he wrestles the dough into shape for the sixth attempt, he imagines a man who doesn’t exist. He imagines an Essek Thelyss who has started no wars, betrayed no friends. He sees this man eat Caduceus’s food late into the evening, with Frumpkin a purring warmth in his lap. Sees him put his entire body in the hot tub and smile as Caleb’s lights spiral over the water. He sees himself not resisting Jester’s Zone of Truth and sharing stories about times his levitation magic fizzled out unexpectedly, watching his friends laugh. And he is so terribly jealous of his imaginary self.

Essek regards the dough for a moment, then punches it, hard, with both fists.

He _wants_ to be that man. He wants his friends. He wants that distance removed, their warmth displacing every drop of cold and loneliness in his veins.

He also wants to fucking _live._

And it’s now, as he slams his knuckles into the dough again and again - because he just wants _not to be executed_ , is that _too much to ask_ , does he not even get _that -_ that the voice explodes inside his head. ‘We’re back! Um, you said you wanted to see us? Should we come to your place, or are you coming over here? Omigosh, TravelerCon was –’

Essek's breathing is steadier, suddenly. He looks at his flour-smeared arms, and then at the oven, and mentally calculates his answer. ‘It’s good to have you all back. I’m… busy at present, but if you would head over in an hour, perhaps? I’ve something for you.’

They’re a half-hour late, which was not altogether unexpected. Caduceus smiles and says ‘hey,’ and Jester shouts ‘Essek!’, loud and delighted, and Caleb gives him a nod. And Beau leans against a wall, and says, ‘You’re not floating.’

‘Well, you said I didn’t need to. Around you all.’

‘Good,’ she says. And her eyes say, _don’t put yourself above us, don’t you ever fucking put yourself above us._

For a moment, the room is too quiet. And then Jester – oh, thank the Light for Jester, and everything about her – is jumping up to sit on the table, and saying, ‘You said you had something for us?’ And then she gasps. ‘ _Essek._ Did you finally get me those pastries?’

Just for flair, he pulls the box into his hand with magic, and flips it open. ‘I hope these meet your exacting standards, Jester.’

She’s on them in a flash, of course, but Nott – Veth? They’ve been using a different name, but no one ever re-introduced her, and he wonders if they ever will – seizes her arm. ‘Don’t eat that! What if he, I don’t know, poisoned them all or something?’

Still leaning against the wall, Beau nods. ‘It’s a good point.’

‘I have not poisoned the cupcakes,’ Essek says. Light, he’s so very tired. ‘I’ll eat one myself if –’

Veth jabs a finger in his direction. ‘But what if it’s a _special_ poison that doesn’t affect drow? Or what if you put a magic dust on them to make us all stupider so that you could cast some kind of spell on us? People do that, you know.’

‘And some people put paralytic poisons into others’ wine. So I’ve learned.’

Caduceus coughs quietly. ‘Well, I believe him. If we want to double-check, you can give me ten minutes to cast Detect Poison and I’ll make sure, but, uh, I think he’s telling the truth.’

‘I’m not waiting ten fucking minutes to have cupcakes.’ Jester throws herself down from the table and spins to face Essek, hands raised. ‘Essek! I’m going to cast Zone of Truth, and you need to not resist it, okay, or we don’t get cupcakes until _forever.’_

And it’s – it’s almost undoable, to watch the pink wave of magic flash out from her, and stand in its path, and not fight. But the magic brushes against his lying tongue and binds it to truth and he ignores every instinct he has and lets it happen, because Jester asked him to.

It’s. Well. It’s like being stared at, like being cut open, and yet it’s oddly freeing. He imagines walking into his family’s home like this, telling the Umavi _you broke me when you raised me,_ telling Verin _I regret the distance I have put between us._ He imagines telling Ludinus, _I know you have shared less than half of your research with me, and I know what you call me behind my back._ He imagines telling Caleb –

(No. Absolutely not. That is one truth he cannot, must not share.)

‘He didn’t fight it at _all,’_ Jester says pointedly. Caduceus is still smiling. Yasha and Veth are rubbing at their foreheads and wincing in a way that tells Essek that they tried to resist, and failed.

Beau looks at Essek, and one eyebrow lifts slightly. ‘All right. You poison the fucking cupcakes?’

‘ _No._ They are not poisoned. Or sprinkled with any kind of dust, or harmful in any way to anyone who eats them, unless any of you are intolerant to dairy. I even made sure there were a few vegan ones.’

Caduceus’s smile grows wider. ‘Oh, that’s great.’

Beau pushes off from the wall at last, taking two strides forwards so that her face is no longer in shadow. ‘Why’d you get them?’

_Because I’m afraid of losing you all. Because you want me to be different, and I don’t know how to do any of what you want, but I can do this. I can make cupcakes. One small thing to leave you better than you were when you walked in through my door._

All of this is true, but the spell doesn’t compel him to say it. So he tells another truth instead. ‘Because… Jester asked.’

And the corner of Beau’s mouth twitches into something that isn’t a smile, and isn’t approval, but is something close. ‘All right. Yeah. That’s fair.’

Jester beams at him, and then at Beau, and then at Essek again. Then snatches up a cupcake and bites into it. ‘Oh. My. _Gosh._ Essek, these are _so_ much better, they’re not even dry at all. Which bakery did you get these from?’ Mouth still half-full, she turns to him and adds, ‘There’s this hag, okay? And I promised to send cupcakes to her if I found any, and these are really really good, so I need to go to this bakery, like, yesterday, and send some to her.’

Of course Jester has befriended a hag. She befriended Essek, after all. ‘I, ah. Put these together myself.’

She stops mid-chew. ‘You _made_ these? You baked us cupcakes?’

‘I gave it a go. I can’t say I was particularly adept on the first few tries, but – ’

He gets no further. Because Jester stuffs the rest of the cake into her mouth, flings herself around the table and throws her arms around his waist.

Essek is sincerely glad he wasn't floating. This is as much of a tackle as a hug, and it would probably have knocked him across the room and into a wall. He regains his breath, and remembers that he should put his arms around her. Which he does, and she grins in a way he can only describe as triumph.

She - she planned this. Of course she did, right from the moment she begged pastries from him on the Ball-Eater. She has proven to the Nein that he can be better, proven to _him_ that he can be better, and he didn’t even notice until it was done. Because Jester does not care for him out of naivety. Jester Lavorre’s kindness is canny, it is deliberate, it is _chosen,_ even now she knows who Essek is and what he’s done. And he -

He chose to return it. She nudged him towards kindness, and he spent hours learning to bake so that he could make her smile. 

_(These people,_ Caleb said, _will change you.)_

As the others collect cakes from the box and draw up chairs to eat, there’s a touch on his sleeve. Jester’s standing there, another cake in her free hand. ‘You wanna know something?’

‘I’m sure you’ll tell me,’ Essek says, and smiles. It’s so easy to do, when she's around.

She pats his arm. Just for a second, and oh so lightly, before letting go. ‘I’ve been really lonely too.’

And for the first time since Caleb snapped those manacles around his wrists, Essek doesn’t feel an aching void in between the Nein and him. Doesn’t feel a scream trying to claw its way up his throat. Making cupcakes is not making amends, he knows this, but his feet are on the ground, and the road ahead of them looks a little shorter than it did before.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Taste' by Sleeping At Last (because that's a Mighty Nein mutual healing song, fellas)


End file.
